Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/zajęcь
Proto-Slavic
Alternative forms
Etymology
From an earlier *zajękъ (still reflected in Bulgarian and Macedonian), of uncertain origin. One possibility is a connection to Lithuanian žaĩsti (“to play around”), supposing an original meaning hopper. If Old Armenian ձի (ji, “horse”) and Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰey- (“to hop, to impel”) are also cognates, then a likely origin would be (per Snoj) Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰōy-en-kos. Further cognates could be Proto-Germanic *gaits (“goat”), Latin haedus (“buck”) (via *-dos extension).
Less likely from Proto-Indo-European *ǵeh₂- (“to nourish, earth”) encountered in Ancient Greek γῆ (gê, “Earth”) (possibly Ancient Greek γᾰ́λᾰ (gála)), which is qualified as dubious by Vasmer.
Shares an analogous morphological ending as Proto-Slavic *měsęcь (“month”), Proto-Slavic *pujęcь (“peacock”) : *pujęca (“turkey”).
Likely related[1] to Lithuanian zuĩkis, from *zuojekas; while Latvian zaķis was borrowed from Belarusian за́йка (zájka).
Declension
Singular | Dual | Plural | |
---|---|---|---|
Nominative | *zàjęcь | *zàjęca | *zàjęci |
Accusative | *zàjęcь | *zàjęca | *zàjęcę̇ |
Genitive | *zàjęca | *zàjęcu | *zàjęcь |
Locative | *zàjęci | *zàjęcu | *zàjęcīxъ |
Dative | *zàjęcu | *zàjęcema | *zàjęcēmъ |
Instrumental | *zàjęcьmь, *zàjęcemь* | *zàjęcema | *zàjęcī |
Vocative | *zàjęče | *zàjęca | *zàjęci |
Descendants
- East Slavic:
- South Slavic:
- West Slavic:
Further reading
- Vasmer (Fasmer), Max (Maks) (1964–1973), “заяц”, in Etimologičeskij slovarʹ russkovo jazyka [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), translated from German and supplemented by Trubačóv Oleg, Moscow: Progress
- Brückner, Aleksander (1927), “zając”, in Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego [Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language] (in Polish), Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, published 1985, page 643
- Georgiev Vl. I., editor (1971), “заек”, in Български етимологичен речник [Bulgarian Etymological Dictionary] (in Bulgarian), volume 1, Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, page 587
References
- T. Skikevich, 2007: Балто-славянский период в формировании лексики русского языка (на примере наименований диких животных) at Materials from International Linguistic Conference at Ryazan State University, May 2007, , page 183 (in Russian),
- Snoj, Marko (2016), “zȃjec”, in Slovenski etimološki slovar, Ljubljana: Inštitut za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, →ISBN: “*za̋jęcь”
- Olander, Thomas (2001), “zajęcь”, in Common Slavic accentological word list, Copenhagen: Editiones Olander: “a (PR 132)”